After last week’s well above average temperatures you could say things have normalized via the law of averages. Yesterday was the first day of spring and late in the afternoon many roads inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park were closed due to snow and ice. We saw some sleet and snow flakes mixed with rain […]
All Options Are On The Table
It’s been incredibly warm here in the Smoky Mountains and East Tennessee over the last week. Hiking up a trail to fly fish a backcountry stream has been a sweaty affair with temperatures 20 degrees or more above normal, but the fishing has been pretty good. Nymphs are working, but we’re not sure who’s fishing […]
Here We Go!
The weather is great, bugs are hatching, trout are rising, and our guide calendar is filling up fast. We even saw a flock of turkeys with a couple of strutting gobblers yesterday. No doubt about it, spring is here and it’s a great time to fly fish in East Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains. Up to […]
Spring is in the Air
If your could see out the window here at R&R Fly Fishing world headquarters in Townsend, Tennessee you’d think I was crazy to say spring is here. Snow is falling and there is a dusting on the trees. That doesn’t tell the whole story, though as it’s been in the 50’s and 60’s the past […]
Tough Winter for Fly Fishing in the Southeast
If you’ve been waiting for a good time to go fly fishing this winter in the Southeast you’ve probably had a tough time making it work out. That’s been made even more ironic by the admission that we’ve had some pretty good weather moments, but unfortunately there were enough high water events to negate the […]
In Spite of the Thaw It’s Still Winter
We had almost a week of weather that sure felt like spring. Bright sun coupled with some hiking made you take the jacket off and feel comfortable in shirt sleeves. There were a few days of good fishing in the mix, but even then there was melting snow that kept water temperatures relatively frigid in […]
A Look at Big Creek in the Snow
We just found this nifty video of Big Creek in the snow from the recent winter storm that stretched from the Smokies up to the Northeast. Big Creek is one of those streams that isn’t at all convenient for us to reach from Townsend which probably helps make it one of those places we really […]
Waiting on Spring
It’s pretty safe to say that we’ve been at our annual fishing low point here in East Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains. Our tailwaters have been running pretty high from the excessive rains at Christmas and our streams have been running pretty cold for the last two weeks. We didn’t near so much snow as […]
Fly Fishing The Smokies and East Tennessee in 2016
So far we’ve had an unusual winter season here in East Tennessee. Right around Christmas we saw weather that would have been considered as unusually warm for Easter, let alone the shortest days of the year. Along with that warm weather we saw exceptionally heavy rains. Streams in the Smokies were at flood levels but […]
The Joy of Being a Kid on the Stream
Maybe the best part of fly fishing is that you get to play around like a kid. I hear it all the time when I’m guiding and I remember my dad saying it too. His remark was that a grown man playing in the creek strikes people as odd, but put a fly rod in his hand […]